Rice Cookers to the Rescue

6/19/08 Posted in News  |  0 Comments

A new trend is taking place in college dorm rooms that can help to save college students from looming unhealthy fast food restaurants, according to Neal Bertrand, the author of the cookbook “Rice Cooker Meals: Fast Home Cooking for Busy People”.

For most freshman in college it is their first time away from home and that means their first time away from regular home cooked meals. Due to lack of money and time, college students end up slipping into the cheap and easy rut of picking up fast food on the way home instead of making healthier foods, that take longer to prepare.

Bertrand recommends college students use a rice cooker to help them produce home-style meals that can lock in all the healthy elements and they’ve been missing since the move from home. Using the rice cooker, he adds, won’t take much time out of their busy lives either.

Below are Bertrand’s top five reasons why rice cookers produce quick, affordable meals and also support healthy, nourished minds:

1) A home-cooked meal combats the chance a college freshman will put on weight.

When teenagers leave the nest for the first time, nutrition is the last thing on their mind. In the mad dash to find their feet at school, they throw caution to the wind and pack on the pounds consuming greasy and chemical enriched fast food. A rice cooker fights the fat by locking in all the nutrients and vitamins that a student need to fuel them through that Geology all-nighter. Got leftovers? Trade your cold greasy pizza with extra cheese for a well balanced hot lunch cooked in minutes.

2) The dining hall, unlike mom’s kitchen, isn’t always open.

Depending on their schedule, college students always seem to be pressed for time…especially when it comes to eating. If the dining hall is closed, the bevy of fast food chains beckon with flashing neon lights. A rice cooker in their dorm room makes them in charge of when and what they eat. Even after a hell-week, students can whip up a meal in less than 30 minutes with preparation taking less than 5 minutes. Toss it in and turn it on.

3) Fast food is expensive.

If you are not interested in taking out a second mortgage to cover all of the extra expenses that your freshman will beg you to cover, a rice cookers is an affordable solution. For example, on microwave meal or super value  meal at a fast food chain can cost over $5. For that same amount of cash your ace student can puck up all the ingredients for chicken and pasta (page 31 in Bertrand’s cook book) and have enough food for two dinners, a couple of lunches and maybe even a late-night snack.

4) I need a stove.

The tiny average dorm room (only 12′ x 9′) rarely has enough room for a roommate, let alone a kitchen. While a refrigerator and computer are vital elements of the perfect dorm room, it is important to also have a space saving appliance to cook with. Smaller than a microwave, the rice cooker will nestle comfortably within any cluttered dorm room. And you’ll be the envy of the entire dorm wing when students smell the mouth-watering aroma of that taco soup (page 63 in Bertrand’s cookbook) drifting down the hall.

5) Care packages are made with love, not trans fat.

New freshmen revel in their freedom to enjoy all the foods that you didn’t keep in your well-stocked cupboards. So instead of sending them the chips, cookies and snacks that they are most likely already stocking under their beds, send them healthy alternatives that they can pop in their rice cooker and instantly turn into a healthy and tasty treat. Send care packages that help your child stay healthy rather than shipping them food that breaks concentration and turns your potential “straight-A student” into an unproductive slug.